1. Field of the Invention
The present application relates in general to the addressing scheme by which resources on the internet are accessed, namely Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), and more particularly to methods to ensure the reliable delivery of internet content to client/users by preventing intermediaries from selectively tampering with the accessibility of content by filtering URLs.
2. Relevant Background
The most highly visited websites in the world make money through the display of advertising on behalf of other businesses. The global online display advertising market is expected to grow by 20% to nearly $40 billion US dollars in 2013. This advertising expenditure permits websites to provide their content free of charge to consumers.
In the early years of the World Wide Web it was common for computing experts to modify their computers settings to prevent them from communicating with internet servers that were known to host display advertising, thereby marginally decreasing the time it would take to download web pages. In recent years, a number of mainstream software tools have emerged that use similar techniques to prevent the display of advertising on all web pages.
Many of these tools are downloadable extensions for popular web browsers, which automatically block communication with thousands of internet servers. An exemplar is the “AdBlockPlus” extension, which is used by hundreds of millions of web users, and prevents the display of advertising on all websites they visit.
Other tools can be installed and configured at a network level, and can achieve the same effect. An exemplar is the “Privoxy” tool, which runs on a computer network and modifies any web traffic that is configured to pass through it.
Due to these blocking tools, many advertising-supported businesses are closing down due to declining revenues.
These tools, and others that employ similar techniques, inflict secondary damage on web businesses. Much functionality of modern websites depends on the web browser's ability to execute javascript source code. The blocking tools discussed above frequently attack javascript execution by preventing the associated source code files from being downloaded. They can also prevent javascript code from communicating with specified internet servers. This is typically used to stop websites collecting web analytics data about their visitors, upon which they depend in day-to-day decision making. This form of attack also damages the businesses that provide these web analytics services, and can be arbitrary directed at any of the growing number of other businesses that utilise similar software architectures.
By selectively blocking parts of web pages, these tools act to tamper with the intended user experience. This is detrimental to the businesses that publish this content, who wish to maintain the integrity of the functionality, presentation and branding of their website, as well as ensuring that any advertising is correctly displayed.
Many of these tools are downloadable extensions for popular web browsers, which automatically block communication with thousands of internet servers. An exemplar is the “AdBlockPlus” extension, which is used by hundreds of millions of web users, and prevents the display of advertising on all websites they visit.
Other tools can be installed and configured at a network level, and can achieve the same effect. An exemplar is the “Privoxy” tool, which runs on a computer network and modifies any web traffic that is configured to pass through it.
Due to these blocking tools, many advertising-supported businesses are closing down due to declining revenues.
These tools, and others that employ similar techniques, inflict secondary damage on web businesses. Much functionality of modern websites depends on the web browser's ability to execute javascript source code. The blocking tools discussed above frequently attack javascript execution by preventing the associated source code files from being downloaded. They can also prevent javascript code from communicating with specified internet servers. This is typically used to stop websites collecting web analytics data about their visitors, upon which they depend in day-to-day decision making. This form of attack also damages the businesses that provide these web analytics services, and can be arbitrary directed at any of the growing number of other businesses that utilise similar software architectures.
By selectively blocking parts of web pages, these tools act to tamper with the intended user experience. This is detrimental to the businesses that publish this content, who wish to maintain the integrity of the functionality, presentation and branding of their website, as well as ensuring that any advertising is correctly displayed.
It would therefore be advantageous to have a system whereby publishers of websites could protect their websites from such tampering. Additional advantages and novel features of this invention shall be set forth in part in the description that follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following specification or may be learned by the practice of the invention. The advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities, combinations, compositions, and methods particularly pointed out in the appended claims.